Where StitchMaynia is Superfluous on a Slow Sunday Stitching...

Hello all - did you have a nice Easter holiday?  Mine was low key and lovely... an appetizer brunch at the home of the new baby... Elliott was the perfect host and slept through most of it... followed by a 2 hour nap that I took when I got back home... no wonder I didn't post last week. The days are flying by and I've had several lovely visits with Elliott... his mom and dad have pushed him over in his fancy stroller when the weather has been nice... and one night my son and I took him for a car ride... he was a bit on the cranky side but fell asleep after a short while... he's gaining weight and growing into his wardrobe of cute clothes... and I have several new places bookmarked... Carter's and Oshkosh... are 2 of my favs at the moment.

With few days left in April lots of cross stitch aficionados are gearing up for StitchMaynia... the  "rules" are quite broad... some people start a new project every day for 19 days... others for 31 days... some commit to working on one project for the entire month... others are doing a mix of WIPs and new starts... it's whatever your heart desires, just stitch stitch stitch...

Well last year I started with a plan of a mix of WIPS and new starts but I didn't last long... my attention wanders here and there and here and over there and what is that shiny thing waaay over there... so I'm not going to participate... and really StitchMaynia is superfluous to me as in the last 2 weeks I have worked on 6 different projects at least... and I'm fairly certain that this behavior will continue indefinitely as there are at least a dozen more charts I want to stitch...NOW!!

Sooooo... I do have some stuff to show... first off the completely stitch Little House Needleworks' Spring ABC...

It is so hard to get a good pic of these... 32ct linen I dyed with Rit dye... a mottled shade of cantaloupe... my pick of DMC colors... can't wait to get it FFO's and hung ... here's a closer look at the top and bottom half...

Excuse the shadows at the bottom of these pics... didn't see it till I went to crop them... anyway this will be a nice addition to my Spring decor and if the current weather is any indication we still have a lot of Spring ahead of us... I could use some sun and warmer temperatures.... but at least it isn't snow...right???

And with that one stitched I turned my attention to Pineberry Lane's Mrs. Maguire's Hen House...

I still need to backstitch between the siding I satin stitched on the coop and add some legs to the coop and it will be complete... 32 ct painted with Rit dye Apple Green and Lemon Yellow and DMC flosses of my choosing...

And with that one almost done I picked up the With Thy Needle & Thread  When Flowers Blossom...

I have been itching to start this one even though it is pretty big... 194W x 129 H... on 32 ct it is going to be about a 12" x 8"...  I had it all kitted up and ready to go and spent a lovely afternoon sitting on my sun porch with this one... didn't get as far as I had hoped as the sun made me sleepy and there was some napping going on too...

Started in the upper right hand corner... got a bee and 2 of the 3 big flowers on that side ... this will be great for my summer decor...


Then one afternoon, I forget which day it was, I decided that I needed to dye/paint some more linen... I stumbled across this fabulous new sampler from Blackbird Designs called O Joyous Day...

Isn't this GORGEOUS??? You can only get if from Stitchville USA...here's their website.... I called them ... on the phone...  I haven't done that in years... and ordered it ... I expected a week or so delay but it came in about 5 days and it is even more gorgeous in person... so I thought about what fabric I wanted to stitch it on... 32 ct is a given but what color... at first I dyed a piece a sort of yellow with some orange but it just wasn't working .... so it got darker... lots darker... like olive green darker... not suitable for this sampler.... try again... okay got a light yellowy green ... think Anchor 842... I liked it a lot but it wasn't good for these flosses... so third try... decided to go with a mottled grayed turquoise... now this I like...

I again started in the upper right hand corner...I want to continue stitching the zig zag there in the middle and be sure I have enough fabric width... this is also a BIG piece... 175 W x 211 H - on 32 ct that makes it 11" x 14"... and every time I dyed fabric for this I did a BIG chunk of linen... now what to do with the "rejects".... thinking.... thinking.... thinking...

and then it hit me... I've been watching lots of people start A Saviour's Praise by Shakespeare's Peddler... 

This sampler is FABULOUS!! and I bought the chart... but I know I will never stitch the entire piece... and what I LOVE LOVE LOVE most about this is the border... all those little motifs and the words ... it is just so wonderful... and then it all came together... I could cut up the big piece of yellowy green linen I dyed and LOVED and stitch snippets of the border as small vignettes and make them into little pillows...and this is what I have so far...

this time I started in the bottom left hand corner... I changed the little flower to a bee and made the scissors a gray...

and then I moved up and did the next snippet...

I pinked up the flowers and added a bee again to fill up some open space... these are about 2.5" wide and the height will vary... resourcefullness is 4" high and piety is 3"... some of the words like kindness and honesty will be even taller ... and I want to do a couple of snippets in the horizontal orientation... I envision these little pillows residing in a dough bowl or a cute basket ... will be on the lookout for a great display piece for them.  This way of stitching this sampler makes me so HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY... I can't wait to start another snippet...

but then I remembered that May is just around the corner and I haven't put a stitch in the May Year of Celebrations by Hands On Designs... yikes... so who needs StitchMaynia??? I've already got plenty of my own mania ...LOL... either way I am very happy sitting on my sun porch stitching and napping...life is very very good!!

So tonight we are celebrating my younger son's birthday... carryout from Olive Garden... we already went out for a Chinese dim sum brunch at 11am... and there was chocolate cake ... a little Bill Knapps cake, remember those? ... I love that restaurant... and I'm feeling a bit sleepy... and I did see a peek of sun a minute ago... so I'll wrap this up and take my stitching basket and relocate to the porch... don't know what to stitch on first but there will be stitching today...

Hope you have a great week ahead... I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today and check out what everyone else is up to...

happy stitching-
carol fun